This is intended to be a homage to very many musicians I've loved since I started listening to music. My intention is to tell what I know about them, hoping that those people who like them too, will help me fill numerous gaps, which I may have in their careers and discographies. Sorry, but there are no MP3 audio files here at all, just info (and love for the musicians).

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Wednesday, 29 April 2015

Andy Fraser was born Andrew McLan Fraser on March 7th, 1952 in Paddington, London. At a very young age, he was spotted by Alexis Korner, who acted as his musical grandfather (Andy was dating Korner´s daughter, the late Sappho Korner). It was Alexis who recommended Andy to John Mayall.

JOHN MAYALL BAND

Next bassist to join, in March 1968, is a very young Andy Fraser (he was 15 years old!!):

They released five albums: Tons of sobs (November 1968), Free (October 1969), Fire and water (June 1970), Highway (January 1971) and the fantastic Free live (June 1971; by the way, the expanded CD reissue is even better).

But tensions started appearing inside, and the band folded (for the first time) in May 1971. All the members started other projects (but they would soon rejoin, as we´re going to read).

TOBY

Toby was the band formed by Andy Fraser after Free´s first separation:

In mid 1972, Chris Spedding and Marty Simon start a new band project that was called Sharks. They asked guitar ace Chris Spedding to join the band. Next step was to find a singer. After auditioning Robert Palmer and Leo Sayer, they finally found Snips, and the original lineup was born:

Comments: The album Both sides contains great musicians in it. By the time the album was recorded, the band had lost Nick South and Sappho Korner, so Alexis called Andy Fraser and Anette Brox instead. Other musicians featured include Paul Rodgers on vocals and a horn section with Henry Lowther (trumpet), John Surman (sax), Kenny Wheeler (trumpet), as well as John Marshall on drums.The CD edition contains 9 bonus tracks (including a previously unreleased BBC session), some of them featuring Nick South and Sappho Korner who didn´t appear in the original album.

Comments: This great guitarist from Free and Back Street Crawler sadly died on March 19, 1976. After his death, this double album was released with outtakes and unreleased tracks, also covering Paul contributions to albums by other artists, such as Amazing Blondel, etc. The list of musicians includes the lineups for Free (Paul Rodgers, Andy Fraser, Tetsu Yamauchi, Simon Kirke, John 'Rabbit' Bundrick), Back Street Crawler (Terry Wilson, Terry Wilson-Slesser, Mike Montgomery, Tony Braunagel), Amazing Blondel (Eddie Baird and Terry Wincott), as well as Jim Capaldi (vocals), Pete Carr (guitar), John Martyn (guitar), Eddie Quansah (horns), as well as the sessions from the ill-fated Paul Kossoff Band with Mike Kellie and Micky Feat.

RELATED VIDEO LINKS: 34
Disclaimer: I don´t own or upload any of the videos linked here. I just include links to live videos that are already available, in order to show the work of this musician. Anyway, if someone feels that some link shouldn't be included, please write me at the email address shown below. And if you know of more videos featuring Andy Fraser, please, also write me with the link.